Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Public can comment on proposed changes to Missouri's guardianship law

ST. LOUIS • Four years in the making, a task force
last week finished a draft revision to a state law that affects some of
Missouri’s most vulnerable residents — 30,000 wards or clients deemed
too incapacitated to make decisions for themselves.

Another 23,000 cases involve minors whose parents were found unable to make choices for them.

The
law covers people with mental illness, head injuries and other issues
that cause them to have court-appointed guardians as substitute decision
makers. Guardians typically have the ultimate say on anything from a
ward’s roommate to personal property to life support.

“As we
review the law, we are making sure people are protected before their
basic civil liberties are taken from them,” said Dan Wheeler, a former
probate commissioner in Jackson County who is part of the Missouri
Working Interdisciplinary Network of Guardianship Stakeholders, or
MO-WINGS.

MO-WINGS started meeting in 2012 to review and recommend
changes to the 100-page guardianship law. The law last underwent a
major revision in 1983.

“It’s good to look at any body of statutes
at least every 20 years because things can get very outdated in the
Missouri code if you aren’t careful,” said David English, a co-chair of
the task force and law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Among
the possible changes, the task force seeks a better balance between
safety for wards and protection of civil liberties. It wants to increase
the possibility of a limited guardianship, so some wards can be more
involved in decision making if a probate judge agrees that is
appropriate, for instance to get permission to vote or change
residences.

The
task force wants to update the wording and organization of the statute
so families can more easily understand the law before they lose parental
rights, or the power to make decisions for spouses and relatives.

The proposed changes coincide with dramatic increases in the number of people the law affects.

Missouri
had 29,908 adult wards under guardianship in 2014, a jump from 21,356
in 2001, according to Wheeler, who reviewed statistics provided by the
Missouri Supreme Court. The number of minors under court-ordered
guardianship doubled in that period, from 11,769 in 2001 to 23,239 in
2014. Those figures include people who have been given conservators to
oversee financial decisions.

The number of elderly wards is expected to continue to rise as baby boomers age.

Meanwhile,
heightened caseloads can take their toll on court-ordered guardians.
Many are family members or friends. But the guardian of last resort is
the public administrator — one in each county and the city of St. Louis.
They take care of physical needs, placement in nursing homes or more
restrictive environments for those who do not have anyone to care for
them.

The decisions public administrators make also cover daily
life, including whether their wards can drive, marry or divorce.
Technically, wards aren’t even supposed to buy anything without
permission.

Some wards have been debilitated by car accidents.
Others have lost their mental ability to function over time because of
dementia and associated age-related illnesses. Some are referred by
hospitals that can’t discharge people who can’t take care of themselves.

“Today, I had to give consent to remove life support,” Jefferson County Deputy Public Administrator Mark DeClue
said last month about a 79-year-old man who fell in a hospital. “You
wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me three hours ago. I hardly knew this
gentleman and he’s under my care. It’s not easy to say, ‘OK, let him
go.’ ”

DeClue said the man became a ward in 2014 after he became
depressed and combative. A probate court decided his family wasn’t able
to make decisions for him.

DeClue said guardianship cases have
“blossomed” in recent years. Ten or 15 years ago, he said the typical
case involved an elderly person in a nursing home whose family stopped
making payments. Now, he said, younger people with mental illness and
drug issues are “coming our way very, very rapidly.”

St. Louis County Public Administrator Tom Arras
said the whole idea is to protect a person who is not capable of making
his or her own decisions. He’s concerned that proposals to update the
guardianship law could pit the ward and guardian against each other.

“Reforms are going to make it harder for guardians to perform their function,” he said.

Christopher
Cross, a court-appointed guardian from Springfield, Mo., said while
reforms are needed he is concerned the wrong kind could cause “serious
public safety risks when forensic clients are involved.”

At this
point, the draft changes to the statute are only recommendations.
Members of the MO-WINGS task force said public input will be sought
until November. Until a website is developed, people can contact the Missouri Developmental Disabilities Council or co-chairs of the task force for comment.

A formal proposal is expected to be presented to the 2016 Legislature.

Guardianship of a disabled adult. House Bill 2506 (David Harris, R- Arlington Heights / Mount Prospect) amends the Probate Act of 1975 affecting disabled adults. It provides that unless a guardian of the person of a disabled adult is specifically authorized by court order, the guardian may not restrict the personal rights of the ward, including, but not limited to, the right to receive visitors, telephone calls, and personal mail.

Let's hope that they also introduce enforcement measures and funds to enforce the changes in the laws.@Twilight: I hope they soon criminalize guardians who isolate their wards. They should experience the same thing or worse.

Sylvia Rudek is telling you something! The issue is trying to be clouded. There is a systemic, organized, planned pattern to take away freedom and assets from non disabled (and suddenly written up disabled by CERTAIN medical personnel working in concert). Nothing is wrong with many of the people under guardianship until they get druggedalmost to death with medecines.

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NASGA (National Association to STOP Guardian Abuse, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) public-interest, civil rights organization formed by victims of unlawful and abusive guardianships and conservatorships. We seek legislative reform of existing law and upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment and engaging in elder and family abuse.

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